Francisco de Peñalosa facts for kids

Francisco de Peñalosa (born around 1470 – died April 1, 1528) was an important Spanish composer from the middle of the Renaissance period. He was known for creating beautiful music, including songs for church services and other pieces.

The Life of Francisco de Peñalosa

Francisco de Peñalosa was born in a town called Talavera de la Reina in Toledo, Spain. He spent most of his working life in Seville, where he was the main music director, also known as maestro di capilla. He also worked in Burgos and spent three years in Rome (from 1518 to 1521) at the Pope's chapel. He passed away in Seville.

Peñalosa's Music and Its Impact

Peñalosa was one of the most famous Spanish composers of his time, just before another great composer named Cristóbal de Morales. People thought his music was excellent.

However, his music wasn't spread very widely. This was because he mostly stayed in Spain. He didn't benefit much from the invention of printing for music. The first places where music was printed were cities like Venice and Antwerp, which were far from Spain. Later Spanish composers, such as Guerrero, Morales, and Victoria, traveled to Italy. There, their music was printed and became as well-known as the music from the Franco-Flemish composers who were very popular in Europe during the 1500s.

Types of Music He Wrote

Peñalosa wrote many different kinds of music. He composed masses (music for church services), settings of the Magnificat (a Christian hymn), motets (short pieces of sacred choral music), and hymns (religious songs).

He also wrote eleven secular (non-religious) songs that have survived. One of these is an ensalada called Por las sierras de Madrid. An ensalada is a type of quodlibet, which means it combines several different tunes or texts into one piece. This particular ensalada was written for six voices.

Musical Puzzles and Clever Techniques

Peñalosa clearly enjoyed creating musical puzzles and canons. Counterpoint is a way of writing music where two or more independent melodies are played at the same time. A canon is a type of counterpoint where a melody is played by one part, and then repeated by other parts, often starting at different times.

You can see his cleverness in the quodlibet mentioned earlier. Another example is the Agnus Dei section of his Missa Ave Maria peregrina. In this piece, he combined a plainsong tune (an old, simple church melody) with a retrograde (backwards) version of a famous secular song by Hayne van Ghizeghem. This shows how skilled he was at weaving different musical ideas together.

His Music Compared to Others

One of his motets, called Sancta mater istud agas, was thought for a long time to have been written by Josquin des Prez. Josquin des Prez was one of the most famous composers of the Renaissance. The fact that Peñalosa's music was mistaken for Josquin's shows how similar their styles were and how high the quality of Peñalosa's compositions truly was.

See also

In Spanish: Francisco de Peñalosa para niños